Amid reports of US NAFTA pullout, Mexico leaned on diplomacy

Like the rest of the world, Mexico only learned through media reports that the Trump administration was considering a draft executive order to withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexico’s top diplomat said Thursday that President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government immediately launched a diplomatic full-court press. That led to a Pena Nieto phone call with President Donald Trump, a U.S. promise not to leave NAFTA for now and a commitment by all three nations in the pact to work on renegotiating it.

Mexico and the U.S. still have points of disagreement but “we are advancing in the right direction,” Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray said.

But just as Trump warned that he was still prepared to walk away from NAFTA unless he gets “a fair deal for the United States,” Videgaray noted there is no reason for Mexico to stay either if negotiations are unfavorable to it.

In an interview with the Televisa network, Videgaray gave a blow-by-blow account of Mexico’s response after it first saw reports about the draft order around midmorning Wednesday.